Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1985. július-december (39. évfolyam, 27-48. szám)
1985-10-24 / 40. szám
10. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ Thursday, Oct. 24. 1985. ‘iBook ~ A UNIQUE BOOK ON HUNGARIAN JEWRY TO AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO Dear Friends, Slowly but slowly indeed the beams of hope are starting to finally penetrate our lair; 1: The latest edition of GUINNESS’ BOOK OF RECORDS, the official well known Bri- tishreference manual, states that the longest opera in the world was composed by the "Hungarian American composer Gabriel von Wayditch with 'The Heretics' which is orchestrated for 110 pieces" (Page 221# 1985 edition) This is further verified by the latest edition of another well known British reference book; GROVES DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS... (It is finally verified 16 years after his death - because earlier editions fail to cite him) 2:The Egyptian Ministry of Culture has recently stated that it shall premier von Wayditch's 'THE CALIPH’S MAGICIAN' when the new Cairo Opera House is opened. A religious fanatic burned the old opera house down - the very edifice which premiered Verdi's 'Aida' over 100 years ago... The building was burned to the ground 8 years ago. A Japanese firm is working on the reconstruction and it is due to be completed by the end of 1987. THE CALIPH'S MAGICIAN was earlier recorded by the Budapest Opera in 1975 and is out on the American Musical Heritage label. 3: Director John Crosby of the Santa Fe Opera has recently sent for the scores of the Wayditch Opera 'Mária Testvér' - which he would like to premier there in the near future... MARIA TESTVER'S action occurs within the 16th century cloister whose ruins can still be viewed on Margit Sziget in Budapest today. W. von Wayditch Vote on Nov 5! People know what they want out of life; security, happiness, health, peace, and want to do their share to live in a nation that provides this. What has happened to the American standard when a majority of working people can't make ends meet and the rate of unemployment is rising? The President states there is a federal budget crisis but. Senator Moynihan and David Stockman reveal this as a "manufactured deficit" clearly designed policy by the administration to undercut long standing social programs through the '90's. In this scenario they have increased $$$ for the military creating an inflated arms industry which doesn't serve the national interest or world peace. How does this benefit society? We must challenge this in every way. Our chance is at the ballot box. In the 1985 election campaign, all candidates must be made to speak out on the issues, make a commitment and be held to their positions. The people know that on NOVEMBER 5th, ELECTION DAY LAWMAKERS AND CANDIDATES NEED OUR SUPPORT. LET'S MAKE OUR VOICES COUNT. WE ARE THE "KNOWBODIES" & WE VOTE. Lee H. And You Shall Tell Your Son - Photos by Tamas Fener, Text by Sándor Scheiber - Révai Printing House, Budapest - 1984 The Ethnographical Museum in Budapest, on April 19, 1983, opened an exhibition of photographs of Jewish people - "their customs, beliefs, achievements and memories." As Janos Hajdú observed in a speech on that occasion: "These photographs will surely survive as an appeal to our consciences as long as minorities exist on this earth." Now, the government of Hungary has made a significant contribution to the family of man with the publication of this chronicle in book form. The photo * juornalism of Tamas Fener reinforces the continuity of Jewish tradition with extraordinary pictures of ordinary day to day Jewish life. So much of Jewishness is bound up with religion without being itself religious; it is most natural that the camera sequence goes from birth and circumcision through the Bar Mitzvah and marriage and death and the prayers of mourning. . As part of the AFL-CIO sponsored America Works series, Singing for the Union presents excerpts from The Great Labor Song Exchange held in Washington, D.C. last year. Including such veteran labor singers as Pete Seeger, the exchange brought together young activists from the rank-and-file trade union movement, singing lyrics of today like “Praise the Lord, I’m a union card/could have been a Visa or Mastercard.” The exchange’s approach, establishing music and other cultural workshops where activists learn skills, deserves to be copied at every level of the labor movement. Labor music, as Tom Jaravich of Penn State Labor Studies puts it so aptly, “is music for use.” *** Women of Steel is a fine, half-hour independent documentary about the plight of women steelworkers struggling against unemployment and the Rea- ganite assault on affirmative action in the Mon Valley of Western Pennsylvania. “With the union you have a recourse, a way to fight,” an unemployed woman steelworker notes. As a steelworker, she had earned $12 an hour and had decent social benefits. Now, as an nonunionized Pizza Hut waitress, she earns less than $3 an hour and has to put up with endless “extra” chores and petty abuses. Even the “free” leftover pizza she gets to bring home to feed her family is a badge of her new servitude. For women workers, the program makes clear, the civil rights struggles of the 60s led to affirmative action triumphs in the 70s that changed the lives of many women workers. As the Reagan administration collaborates with corporations and contractors to gut affirmative action and sanctions the flight of capital in basic industries, women workers are uniting with unemployed men in the Mon Valley Unemployed Council and struggling to retain the hard won gains of the 60s and the 70s. *** PBS explored labor’s militant past in its weeklong tribute. The Wobblies, another fine documentary made in 1977 about the IWW, told the story of this revolutionary labor organization, which broke with the AFL in the early years of the 20th Century. It sought to organize all workers, including Black people and women workers into “one big union,” and called openly for the abolition of the capitalist system. While there were great flaws in the IWW’s syndicalist outlook which the documentary doesn’t explore, the movement was an important foundation for American labor militancy, The illustrated celebration of the holy days is accompanied by a superb text which traces the lines of Jewish history from the era before Christ to the present. Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, Shavout: all are in beautiful color on these pages. The words and images are as one in telling the story. The religion is honored. But the people are celebrated. A final section desribes the educational system which the government supports financially. Tamás Fener is an exceptionally talented camera artist in the tradition of his world famous Hungarian compatriot Robert Capa. The accompanying text by Sándor Scheiber reads as though it comes through the lens of the camera with the picture. The translation by Joseph Wiesenberg is both easy and true. The slim 155 page volume on gloss paper is a bit larger than the usual book size but perfect for the living room coffee table. "And You Shall Tell Your Son" is an ideal Christmas or Hanukkah gift for the entire family. E. Perlstein and a training ground for some of the U.S. proletariat’s greatest political and cultural leaders — Joe Hill, Big Bill Haywood, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn among others. Also, as the documentary makes clear through newsreels and interviews with old Wobblies, the capitalist class used both U.S. entry into World War I and anti-Bolshevik hysteria to launch a massive repression against the anti-war IWW, encouraging vigilante torture and murder, mass arrests and long prison sentences, and deportations against Wobblies (as it did against Socialists, future Communists,, and other activists of the workers movement). *** Even the Heavens Weep: The West Virginia Mine Wars, recounts a remarkable incident in U.S. labor history, the march of 10,000 armed miners to Blair Mountain, West Virginia, in defense of their rights against the detectives, scabs, and police agents of the mine owners. The conditions that led the miners to rise up are recounted — boys of 14 working as much as 14 hours a day in mines for 250a day; no safety rules; company housing without plumbing (save for the manager’s); company stores with high prices, company schools and churches where the teachers and the preachers were as much hired hands of the bosses as were the miners. Out of the long struggle to unionize the region and resist the terror launched by local sheriffs and company detectives against union organizers and pro-union workers, miners armed themselves and prepared for a march to Logan. West Virginia, in 1921. While the mine owners mobilized their forces around Blair Mountain and even hired private planes to bomb the workers (their version of the World War I slogan “making the world safe for democracy”), the anti-Harding administration warned the UMW leaders of the march that they would face federal charges if they did not turn back. When Harding sent in 2,500 troops to encircle both the miners and the scab army, the workers surrendered, believing that the federal government would respond to their plight. Instead, the mine owners, supported by reactionary Republican administrations that are the true precursors of Ronald Reagan, continued their union busting campaigns, evicting over 50,000 miners and their families, and bankrupting the UMW local. Honoring labor's traditions
